They May Not Mean To, But They Do

58

The great day arrived. Ruby sat nervously waiting to be called to read her Torah portion. It was a portion full of curses cast on the people, but she could not really blame God — the Israelites were always straying. She had recently seen an old black-and-white movie in which Lassie, actually Lassie’s son Bill, a perfect and brilliant collie sheepdog belonging to a young Elizabeth Taylor, accidentally goes off to World War II and comes home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, growling at and biting anyone who comes near him, raiding chicken coops, until at last he is reunited with Elizabeth Taylor and regains his calm and loving nature. Ruby had, in the last few days of frantically practicing her Haftorah, begun to confuse the behavior of God and of Bill, both of them essentially good, both of them driven to violence by the misbehavior of human beings. She sensed this must be sacrilegious, the comparison of a dog, however regal, and the god of the Israelites, but the thought was hard to get out of her head once it had planted itself there.

Her sister had wanted to wear a matching dress. Ruby had not had to throw a fit, though she was prepared to do so. Their mother had pointed Cora to a frilly dress she knew Ruby would never have worn, and Cora had fallen for the bait. Ruby was content in a dress her grandmother called elegant. Her mother had been willing to spend quite a bit of money on it, she was so relieved it was not a bejeweled ice-skating costume. “Sophisticated” was the word Ruby used to describe it, and herself, to herself.

She looked down at her grandmother, in the first row, who was rather violently slapping her legs together, then moving them apart, then slapping them together again, staring meaningfully at Ruby. Maybe Grandma Joy had to go to the bathroom. But it was very distracting.

“Why won’t Ruby put her legs together?” Joy whispered to Danny. She slapped her own closed again, instructively. “She looks like Sharon Stone, for heaven’s sake.”

Ruby could not remember much of the actual ceremony. She was aware of the rabbi, her wonderful rabbi, right beside her, a strong and comforting presence. The cantor was wearing perfume, which made Ruby sneeze once. She had no love for the cantor, a cold, shrill taskmaster in soft feminine sheep’s clothing. The Hebrew letters of the sacred yellowed scroll came in and out of focus, but the words were there, in her head, in her soul, she realized, and she chanted a little louder, her voice firm and high and only occasionally off pitch.

Karl sat on Joy’s other side, murmuring along with the prayers. Danny had insisted Karl sit there, right in front, and that was nice, but Joy’s escort was someone else, someone not there; she felt Aaron’s absence as if it were a physical presence beside her. She wore sunglasses and cried freely. Aaron, she thought, you would be so proud. Aaron had not been religious, not at all; he had not been brought up with any Jewish education and he claimed to think all religion was superstition. He did not in the least mind singing about Jesus Christ when Purcell or Handel wrote about him, he was as comfortable in a church as in a synagogue, but he would have been happiest now, proud of his granddaughter up there, so brave, so learned. Joy pressed the damp Kleenex to her cheek. Danny was grinning and crying, too. Cora was kicking her feet, but they were in the front row, so she wasn’t bothering anyone. Joy wished she believed she would see Aaron again in heaven, but since she did not, she was grateful to think of him here in this place, at this moment, when he would have been so gloriously happy.

* * *

The party had no theme. It was a party, a celebration, pure and simple. There were about sixty of them in the restaurant, an old neighborhood Italian place that Ruby had loved since she was a small child. They filled the restaurant. Ruby made sure to thank Manuel, the owner of the corner store she had defaced, for coming. She introduced him and his wife to her Aunt Molly and Aunt Freddie. “I introduced Ruby to the rabbi,” Manuel said. He grinned and looked proud, and Ruby made her retreat before he said any more. She took a sip from her mother’s glass of champagne and was brushed gently away. Then Ben grabbed her and she was placed on a chair and lifted high in the air, waving regally. It wasn’t a horse, and she had been assured by both parents that she would never be getting a horse, but, she thought, up there on the wobbling chair, it was an awfully good ride.

* * *

In the car that was driving them back to the Upper East Side, Joy and Karl sat quietly side by side.

“You have a wonderful family,” he said.

“I do.” She gazed out the window. The Pepsi sign was cursive and bright, the river sparkled with the reflection of the city. Queens. Even Queens was no longer affordable, that’s what the young people at the party had been saying.

“I told my sons about you, Joy.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Really? What did you say? They were not too pleased, if my children are anything to go by.”

“I said I wanted to marry you.”

“Oh boy. I bet they didn’t like that.”

“No, they didn’t. They think I’ve lost my marbles. They were furious.” He started laughing. “It was worth it just to hear them sputtering, trying to come up with reasons it would be a bad idea. I told them we would have a prenup of course, and that calmed them down.”

“But, Karl honey, did you tell them that I don’t want to marry you?”

He shifted, took out his handkerchief, blew his nose, shifted some more. “No.”

“Oh.”

“Joy, I know it’s too soon, and we’ll probably both drop dead before it’s not too soon…”

“… carried to the altar feetfirst.”

Karl laughed and said, “But you never know. In this life you never know.”

Outside, on the river, a tugboat pushed a barge. “You know certain things,” she said.

“It was very satisfying, at any rate, telling the kids,” Karl said. “Put the fear of god into them.”

Joy nodded. “Good. That’s good. Poor things.”

Then she had an idea.

She didn’t want to marry him, and she didn’t want to live with him, it was true. They were both too old and set in their ways, and her apartment turned out to be just big enough for her and all her mail, and now that she had the dog, she didn’t mind staying there alone. But, well, she had feelings for Karl. She did. Strong feelings. She loved being with him, having dinner or sitting beside him in the park. She missed him when they were not together. Karl bracketed her long love for Aaron — on the one side hovered the youthful, passionate Karl and the foggy memories of a college beau, on the other this new foggy tolerant affection for a man in old age.

Marriage, however, even living with him — that was a time together they had missed, a time that could not be recovered.

“No wedding,” she said. “No oldies shacking up.”

“I know, I know.”

But their children, they’d gotten her back up. Who did they think they were, those sons of his, telling Karl he shouldn’t marry someone if he wanted to? As for Molly and Daniel, had Karl’s presence at the bat mitzvah hurt anyone?

“The children mean well,” she said. “But it can be a bit much.”

He said, “Amen.”

“Well, here’s my idea,” she said. “We’ll get engaged. Just engaged. Nothing decided, nothing certain, no plans, but always that possibility. It’s very existential. And it’ll keep those kids all on their toes.”

Karl laughed. He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Joy,” he said, “you take my breath away.”